Myles Manley makes idiosyncratic folk music on guitar with rhythms and colours snatched from various places, most recently Eric B and Rakim, Micachu and The Shapes, Moondog, The Clash’s Sandinista, Jinx Lennon, Frankie Cosmos, etc. “I started listening to a lot of early hiphop for some reason and what I loved about it was the clunkiness of the sounds, and the excitement you can hear at a whole new world of opportunities. I bought an MPC and started making idiot beats late at night that I’d write songs to. I’ve always had an ear for weird rhythms and I was able to make stuff that you’d never come up with rehearsing in a room with a drummer.”

A batch of songs written in this way was then taken to human drummers Solamh Kelly and Oisin Trench and recorded by longtime collaborator Chris Barry, who added his own guitar parts, yielding the single you have in your very ears. “It is amazing to play with such musicians because they take a framework and make it come alive, add their voice to it. It starts to express a time and a place. And it starts to express my unbelievable talent.”

Hurrying through Broadstone, Dublin for another midnightsession of bopping and guitar strumming at the Mr. Barry’s studio Ail Fionn, the aloof, succulent Manley has this to whistle: “these are troubling times for a reluctant narcissist. You always thought you could saunter through life, gently seeking attention, a joker in the pack, avoiding beatings, harming no-one beyond mild nuisance making. There’re times you wonder, are you lord of the dance or lord of the bluebottles?”

Myles Manley was born in northern England and lived in a few places there until his family moved to Sligo, Ireland, where he became the village indie boy. “I’m in love with songs. What I am seeking in my music is naivety and deliciousness; what I find is also an escape from anxiety. And if you want to really hear it, imagine early days, running round a dead, shithole town at 4am in August, with a person you haven’t kissed, want to kiss and will never kiss. No power. Night night.”

“Relax; enjoy your night upon the town” is set for release on February 17th via Dublin’s Little L Records, available on 7″ and all major digital platforms.

Dates

Feb 17 London (New Cross) — Amersham Arms

Feb 19 Coventry — The Tin Arts and Music

Feb 22 Newport — Le Pub

Feb 24 Leeds — House Show

Feb 25 Edinburgh — Safari Lounge

Feb 26 Sheffield — Audacious Art Experiment

Mar 3 Belfast — The Sunflower

Mar 4 Sligo — McGarrigles

Mar 23 Buncrana — Ned’s Point

Mar 24 Derry — Bennigans

Mar 25 Dublin — The Workman’s Club

Apr 8 Limerick — Dolan’s Warehouse

Apr 9 Dundalk — The Spirit Store

“Relax; Enjoy your night upon the town!” with this utterance Myles Manley is being at once both sincere and fatalistic. “I always knew I was the best!” says the dashing and supercilious young artist with a smile, “but at certain points I realise that that might not really be the case. It is always the case though.”

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